Back When Beauty Cafe Was Just a Dream (and a Kitchen Table Full of Vials)
When I first started Beauty Cafe back in 1997, Blondie was just 7 years old. Today, she’s 35, married to her high school sweetheart (they’ve known each other since elementary school!) and the proud mama of two beautiful kiddos. Time really does fly when you’re building something you love.
My mom was 70 at the time and one of my biggest champions. In fact, she was the one who came up with the idea that would change everything for us — “Try Before You Buy.” We offered a sampler set of fragrances for just $5.00 and applied that $5 toward a future full-size purchase. Simple idea, big impact.
That little sampler set helped launch a whole new way to experience fragrance — especially for those who didn’t have access to fancy department stores or niche boutiques. Suddenly, people across the country could explore the world of indie and hard-to-find fragrances, one little glass vial at a time, delivered right to their mailbox.
Back in ‘97, Amazon was still just selling books. Google didn’t exist. You couldn’t just hop online and find suppliers. You had to hustle, get creative, and think way outside the box. So that’s what we did.
Our first sample vials came from a local headshop in Dallas. Yep, I’d hop in the car and drive into the city to buy them. Sometimes we'd call around to every headshop we could find, trying to "score" enough vials to get through the week. It wasn’t until the early 2000s that we finally found a supplier online and could start buying in bulk. Hallelujah!
Mom and I would hand-spray every single sample ourselves. There were days her "pump finger" was so sore and bruised — mine too. Once “Try Before You Buy” took off, we lost count of how many sample packs we were making each day. But we’d sit around the kitchen table with a box of testers, laughing, chatting, and spritzing away. Those are some of my favorite memories.
Eventually, many of our vendors began catching on to what the big brands were doing and started supplying their own branded sample vials. But even then, we kept making samples by hand for new indie lines or when vendors couldn’t keep up.
Beauty Cafe was never just about selling fragrance. It was about connection. About making things personal. About helping someone discover their new favorite scent — one tiny vial at a time.
Note: Mom is now in hospice with me, and we've been spending time reminiscing and my nostalgic heart decided to relaunch Beauty Cafe in her honor/memory.
